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St Catherine, Patroness of Europe and Italy

29th April 2021

The CHC blog

St Catherine, Patroness of Europe and Italy

Stefan Kaminski
View of the Court d'honneur at the Papal Court at Avignon, France

Europe has six patron saints, amongst them St Catherine of Sienna, who is also shared with Italy as patron saint and whose feast is today.

The remarkable Catherine is known, amongst other things, for her hard-hitting reform of Church politics, including persuading the Pope to return to Rome from Avignon and reconciling his successor with the Roman Republic. What is even more remarkable though, is that she did all this before dying at the age of 33.

Neither was Catherine brought up in the sort of circles that were used to such high-level diplomacy. She was the youngest of the large family of a tradesman, who nonetheless was one of a faction that ruled the Republic of Sienna for a brief period in between revolutions. Born in 1347, she was graced with a deep love for Christ and with visions from her earliest years. This put her firmly on the path towards a consecrated, religious life as the means to unite herself to her one, true Love. Her hard-headedness was quickly revealed as this course of life was not quite what her parents hoped for. Indeed, aged 16, she cut off her long, beautiful her in protest against their desire for her to attract a suitable husband.

Giovanni di Paolo, Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine of Siena
The tomb of St Catherine in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome

However, in her active and practical mind Catherine was equally sure that she did not want a cloistered life. She therefore joined the lay branch or third order of the Dominicans, choosing to wear the Dominican habit and making a promise to God of celibacy. After three years of enclosed prayer (aged 16 to 19) and mystical experience, she emerged to begin serving the sickest and poorest in the Sienese community. Her joy, deep spiritual insight and practical wisdom quickly attracted a group of men and women disciples around her. Together, they began travelling the country, calling both the laity to conversion and the clergy to reform.

In 1370 (aged 23), Catherine received a particular vision of the next life and, together with this, a call to enter public life. She began to write letters to influential public figures, extending her call to conversion to them. The depth of philosophical and theological knowledge that she had gained through prayer, and her complete dedication to God, resulted in this young lady quickly gaining the attention of the day’s leaders, including Pope Gregory XI.  The latter was currently residing in Avignon, which had been sold to the Papal States in 1348. Catherine was adamant that the Pope should reside in his own see (like any other bishop), wanting him to reform the clergy generally and also the administration of the Papal States, and so to help bring peace to a fractured Italy.

In 1376, she was sent as an ambassador for Florence to the Pope in Avignon to sue for peace in the war that had broken out between the two. Although she was unsuccessful at that moment (mainly due the constant shifts in power in the Florentine government), the impression she made on the Pope convinced him to return to Rome, despite the opposition from his cardinals and the French King. Back in Rome, the Pope in turn sent her to Florence to negotiate peace in 1378. After a tumultuous six months in Florence, during which she narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, peace was finally achieved. In the meantime however, Gregory XI had died and been succeeded by Urban VI.

The election of Pope Urban VI was followed by a schism within the Western Church, as the electing cardinals, influenced by political concerns and pressures, backtracked on their choice. Claiming an invalid election, a small number of cardinals elected another candidate, who settled into Avignon as Clement VII.

Catherine, in the meantime, returned to Rome, continuing to work strenuously to effect reforms amongst the clergy and to serve the destitute in the city – as she had continued to do in Siena. She also took up the cause of Pope Urban VI and the unity of the Church, sending streams of letters to low and high alike, in all directions. At the beginning of 1380, she began suffering a mysterious agony after imploring the Lord to take her body in sacrifice for the unity of the Church and for the sins of the world. This suffering culminated in her death on 29th April, but not before her last diplomatic coup of bringing about a reconciliation between the Roman Republic and Urban VI.

St Catherine’s remains are buried under the high altar of the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, next to the Pantheon. She leaves us some 400 letters, besides her prayers and key work, the “Dialogue”, which together are recognised as having greatly influenced Italian literature.

Giovanni di Paolo, Saint Catherine of Siena Dictating Her Dialogues
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St George, the Martyr-Knight

Full title: Saint George and the Dragon Artist: Gustave Moreau Date made: 1889-90 Source: http://www.nationalgalleryimages.co.uk/ Contact: [email protected] Copyright © The National Gallery, London

23rd April 2021

The CHC blog

St George, the Martyr-Knight

Stefan Kaminski

Celebrating our martyr-patron, St George, necessarily involves some distinguishing of fact from fiction. Even some of the earliest narratives from the 5th-century that relate to St George claim some rather incredible stories of him. We automatically associate him with a dragon, but ironically this story can’t be traced further back than the Golden Legend of the 12th century.

What is clear is that the St George did exist as a historical person. An ancient cult, and the accounts of several pilgrims in the 6th to 8th centuries, all speak of Lydda as the resting-place of his remains and of the veneration which had been accorded him since his death in about 303 AD. His martyrdom would have therefore occurred under the tyrant-Emperor Diocletian, who was also sometimes allegorised as a dragon – one possible explanation for the associated story.

The veneration of St George spread quickly in both East and West. A church in Rome was already dedicated to him by 512AD, and it still stands today. His cult was “exported” to England by the 8th century, and churches had been dedicated to him by the time of the Norman conquest.

The crusades brought about an increase in the popularity of such “martyr-knights” as St George, whose patronage was invoked to support righteous causes. George was particularly seen to personify the ideals of Christian chivalry, and so was quickly adopted as a patron of various city states and countries. King Richard the Lionheart is said to have been responsible for introducing St George’s coat of arms. However, by 1222 his feast had already been proclaimed a holiday. By the 14th century, English soldiers were bearing St George’s coat of arms, but the official seal of Lyme Regis already consisted of a ship bearing the “George cross” in 1284. His cross remains the British Navy’s ensign today.

Gustav Moreau, Saint George and the Dragon
San Giorgio in Velabro, Rome
An image of the remains of the Temple of Janus, showing San Georgio in Velabro to the right, by Etienne Duperac
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The Necessity of Good Friday

2nd April 2021

The CHC blog

The Necessity of Good Friday

Stefan Kaminski

Each day of the Easter Triduum is inseparable from the rest: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday form a single, liturgical action, as the Church sees it. Together, the Thursday evening to Sunday morning constitute a time of immersion in the most sacred and greatest of mysteries. In the middle of this liturgical trio is the celebration of Our Lord’s Crucifixion on Good Friday. It would not be inaccurate to call this, literally, the “meat” of the Triduum: the substance of the rite that is instituted on Holy Thursday is found on Good Friday; and, without Christ’s death, there would be no Resurrection. The celebration of the most joyous and solemn Easter Mass hinges on the prior celebration of Good Friday.

Equally, if Easter signals the commencement of our life in the Holy Spirit, the era of the Church, Good Friday can be perhaps considered the absolute pivotal moment between Testaments Old and New. Although a “New Testament event”, it also signals the final closure of the Old Testament, in the sense that Good Friday celebrates the Sacrifice of sacrifices, the last word with respect to man’s historic need for sin offerings as practiced under the Old Covenant. Christ’s sacrifice is the final but only effective one in a long chain of sacrifices made since Abel and Cain. Similarly, in finally atoning for all human sin, past and future, it ushers in the life of grace. So it is that all sacrifices before Christ’s were a mere antetype; any sacrifices made since cannot be other than idolatry.

At the same time, the Cross speaks most profoundly of the Mystery of God’s Love. It brings together and crushes the contradiction created by man’s first disobedience. In the Cross, the weight of human sin and the magnitude of the Father’s Love confront each other; High Priest and Victim are united; God and man are reconciled; life and death are met. The Mystery of this day is such that “every word is silenced before this… the Father’s hour, when the eternal triune plan is executed,” in the words of von Balthasar.

Carl Bloch, The Crucifixion of Christ

Indeed, the only necessary words on Good Friday are those spoken by the Son as He hangs from the Cross: seven phrases, identified from across the Gospels, referred to as the Seven Last words. These words uttered by the Word are, in a sense, God’s final word. “But in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb 1:2), and these are the words spoken by the Son in the last moments of His life on earth. Each is therefore full of significance, drawing together all of God’s preceding revelation and bringing it to its climatic fulfilment.

Perhaps the most enigmatic of these words, and the ones that most vividly speak of the transition from Old Testament to New, is the fourth phrase: “Eli, Eli, la′ma sabach-tha′ni?” “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

These words come from the beginning of Psalm 22; Israel’s great psalm of suffering, a plea for deliverance from suffering and hostility. It is addressed to an apparently-distant God: One who is recognised as past deliverer of Israel, but Who is currently silent, despite the repeated prayers of the people. The psalmist, some 1,000 years before, speaks of the very details that are to manifest themselves on Calvary: the mockery and the challenge to God, the piercing of the hands and feet, the division of the clothes amongst the soldiers and the casting of lots for the outer garment. By invoking Psalm 22 from the Cross, Jesus thus identifies those prophetic words with the event of His Crucifixion, simultaneously speaking reality into those words as he undergoes what they portray.

At the same time, Psalm 22, and therefore the Crucifixion event, does not end with the sufferings of the Messiah. In the last stanzas of the Psalm, a transformation takes place: “From thee comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied… the families of the nations shall worship before him.” In these lines, the early Church identified herself as the “great congregation” that offers a sacrifice of praise. In the memorial of the Passion, instituted by Christ at the Last Supper and manifested in the Church’s liturgy, the Bread of Life Himself becomes the food of the afflicted. And as the Gospel spread throughout the Roman empire and beyond, so those who worshipped the One, true God spread beyond the people of Israel to include the wider families of the nations.

And so Psalm 22 also alludes to the immediate fruit of Christ’s Suffering: the birth of the Church, and with her, of the Sacramental economy. As the Old Testament is brought to completion and the New begun, so too the people of God is created anew. From the side of the Body of Our Lord is drawn forth the water and blood of the Church’s Sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist. As Eve was drawn from Adam’s side, so too is the Church drawn from Christ’s.

We celebrate today “a great mystery… Christ and the Church”, in which “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25). The contemplation of the Cross is the contemplation of Christ’s love for each of us, from which flows the offer of grace and the promise of new life. Good Friday is not a day to be overlooked.

Post updated 29th March 2024

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G.M. Hopkin’s “God’s Grandeur”

2nd April 2021

The CHC blog

God's Grandeur

By Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
    And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
 
And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

A discussion of G. M. Hopkins's poem "God's Grandeur"

Dr Michael D. Hurley (University of Cambridge, Chairman of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst), Dr Rebekah Lamb (University of St Andrews, Trustee of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst), and Dr Jan Graffius (Curator of the Museum, Library, and Archives at Stonyhurst) discuss Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “God’s Grandeur”.

The podcast offers an accessible overview of Hopkins’s life, the literary and theological richness of his poetry, and some of the ways in which his religious, scientific, and creative imagination was shaped by his experiences at Stonyhurst.

In collaboration with Stonyhurst College and Jesuits in Britain.

Gerard Manley Hopkins Podcast

About Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins was an English poet and Jesuit priest, one of the most individual of Victorian writers. However, because his style was so radically different from that of his contemporaries, his best poems were not accepted for publication during his lifetime, and his achievement was not fully recognised until after World War I. Hopkins was a former seminarian pupil and teacher of Stonyhurst. His poem ‘God’s Grandeur’ is thought to be inspired by the grandeur of the building and the beauty of his surroundings whilst at Stonyhurst, finding ‘God in all things’.

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CHC acquires Caldecott Library

2nd March 2021

The CHC blog
The Inklings included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, who were foundational to Stratford Caldecott's conversion

Stratford Caldecott's library finds a home at the CHC

Stefan Kaminski

The Christian Heritage Centre is very pleased to announce its acquisition of Stratford Caldecott’s personal library, which will find a home at Theodore House and form the backbone of the CHC’s own library.

Stratford Caldecott is a name much-loved by many students, scholars and writers both in the Catholic world and without. Referred to as “the most powerful voice for Catholic culture in the Anglophone world”, Stratford found his way to Catholicism from an agnostic background and by way of several Eastern religions. His conversion was helped along by his realisation that the stories which had shaped his youth were all built on a Christian worldview. These particularly included C.S. Lewis’ and J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings.

Apart from teaching at Oxford, his own alma mater, Stratford set up the Centre for Faith and Culture with his wife Leonie, as well as establishing the Second Spring movement with her. He served on the boards of Communio, The Chesterton Review and the Catholic Truth Society, as well as editing Magnificat, Humanum and the Second Spring journal. He wrote and published widely on Christian apologetics, theology, and cultural themes.

Stratford sadly passed away in May 2014 after a long battle with cancer, though the work of the Second Spring movement very much continues under the guiding hands of Leonie and of Tessa Caldecott Cialini. Following his death, Leonie moved house and has been keen to find a good home for the Stratford’s library.

“This is an historic opportunity for the CHC. Strat is an incredibly important figure in the history of contemporary Catholicism in the UK (and beyond) and contributed to the kinds of initiatives so dear to the CHC,” says Dr Rebekah Lamb, a Trustee of the charity. Rebekah was greatly influenced by Stratford, having attended his Second Spring summer school, and she now lectures in Theology, Imagination and the Arts at St Andrews.

“Buried a stone’s throw from his beloved Tolkien, Strat was crucial to helping direct (if not inaugurate) substantive scholarship on the positive influence Catholicism had on the literary greats of modernity and is responsible for collecting and, for a time, housing the Chesterton archive which is now under the curatorship of the University of Notre Dame (at its London Global Gateway). 

He was a deep reader, thinker, and committed Catholic as passionate about Catholic Social Teaching as he was about formation, the gift of the Eucharist, and authentic inter-religious dialogue.

When he passed away seven years ago, he left behind countless friends and fellow scholars from around the globe who saw in him not only a thinker of penetrating insights informed by a deep life of prayer but also a mentor and friend.”

Housing his personal collection will not only serve as a benefit for those who take part in events with the CHC. It will also provide insight for scholars who wish to gain a deeper insight into Strat as thinker–after all, you can judge a scholar by his bookshelves!

Stratford’s library includes not only a breadth of important philosophical and theological volumes stretching from the Fathers of the Church to the 20th century, but also a collection of important writings from the Eastern Orthodox tradition, as well as a library of writings by Lewis, Tolkien and other of the Inklings. A complete set of the Chesterton Review is also present.

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Lent: A Time of Preparation

17th February 2021

The CHC blog

Lent: A Time of Preparation

Stefan Kaminski
Sandro Botticelli, The Temptations of Christ
When God became man, He humbled Himself by taking on a nature (that of the human being) within which change is necessary. He put aside the glory of His eternal perfection, and entered a state that, whilst natural to us, is not natural to God; a state in which He had to grow, progress in maturity and wisdom, and toil towards the accomplishment of a goal.
 
Every human being shares the common experience of existing in this mode of continual change and development, with its accompanying toil and strife. Christians though, are united by their striving, their willingness to undergo change, for eternal life. A Christian’s earthly life is one of actively working towards eternal life: the destiny that the Lord desires for every person, whether they realise it or not.
 
The possibility of our achieving eternal life was bought with Christ’s death. Christ’s very goal in taking on a human nature was the extreme suffering and tortuous death of crucifixion. In this sense, Christ can be said to be the only person who was born in order to die.
 
Lent, as it leads us towards the celebration of this great Mystery of our Redemption, is therefore especially a time for change. It is a time for proving our desire for Heaven by taking stock of our interior state and our exterior habits, and implementing practices that can help us to effect the changes that are needed.
 
The Church’s wisdom identifies three essential practices for spiritual growth: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Their principle aims are to increase our awareness of and desire for God, to help us gain greater mastery over ourselves, and to increase our detachment to material things. As such, Lenten practices most importantly are practices whose effects we should feel: practices that make a certain demand on us and so help us to achieve growth.
 
In the words of Pope St Clement I: “Let us fix our attention on the blood of Christ and recognise how precious it is to God his Father, since it was shed for our salvation and brought the grace of repentance to all the world… let us hasten towards the goal of peace, set before us from the beginning. Let us keep our eyes firmly fixed on the Father and Creator of the whole universe, and hold fast to his splendid and transcendent gifts of peace and all his blessings.”
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The Presentation of Jesus

2nd February 2021

The CHC blog

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

Stefan Kaminski
Candlemas? Presentation of the Lord? Purification of the Blessed Virgin? Mildly confused?
 
They’re all the same feast – today! Why the different names? And why “Purification”?
 
The Mosaic Law required a woman who had given birth to a male child to be purified in the Temple. She was considered unclean for 7 days after the birth, and had to await another 33 days before presenting herself in the temple.
 
This question of uncleanliness is often misunderstood as something negative though. The notion of “spiritual impurity” (as it’s translated) is defined by Chassidic teaching as an “absence of holiness”. It refers to a certain distance from the source of life: God Himself. Hence according to Jewish law, the highest magnitude of “uncleanliness” comes from touching a dead body, since death is the principal cause of distance from Life.
 
When it comes to the woman’s natural cycle of fertility, this brings a woman to a peak level of potential holiness, because she is potentially united to the Life-Giver in her ability to pro-create a human being. When a child is conceived, she takes part in a singular action of creation, which involves God Himself. Following that moment (whether actual or potential), the rest of the cycle is a “descent” from that higher state of holiness: a certain emptying or impurity. The ritual purification that follows (the ‘mikvah’) is then part of a cycle of preparing for the next “ascent”. There is a certain parallel with the six “mundane”, week days and the holy day of the Sabbath.
Girolamo Romanino, The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple
And so today we celebrate the day that Mary, forty days after the birth of Christ, went into the Temple to redeem her new-born Son and to be purified. The offering that was prescribed with this ritual was a lamb, or two turtle doves or pigeons if the lamb could not be afforded. Mary and Joseph presented two turtle-doves.
 
The celebration of this day spread out from Jerusalem, and is attested to in Antioch in 526 AD. It is not until the end of the 7th century AD that the procession with candles (not commonly celebrated any more) was added. The significance of the candles foreshadows their use at the Easter Vigil, commemorating the words of Simeon the High Priest, upon receiving the Child Jesus in the Temple:
 
“At last, all-powerful Master, give leave to your servant to go in peace, according to your promise. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all nations: the light to enlighten the Gentiles, and give glory to Israel, your people.”
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Advent Antiphons: O Emmanuel

23rd December 2020

The CHC blog

23rd December - O Emmanuel

“O Immanuel, you are our king and our judge, the One whom the peoples await and their Saviour.
O come and save us, Lord our God.”

The final antiphon condenses the glory and might of the Lord, as announced by the previous antiphons, into the immanence of the human form. Emmanuel is the name given in prophecy by Isaiah to King Ahaz to describe the promised Messiah (Is 7:14). Meaning “God is with us,” it serves as a title that aptly describes the person of Jesus.

The references to “king” and “judge”, as well as the final invocation, “O come and save us”, are also drawn from one of Isaiah’s prophecies (33:22), which has as its theme the deliverance of Israel from its foes into the land of the King. The final “Lord our God” of the antiphon also emerges from a similar theme: it appears to refer to Isaiah 37:20, in which the prophet Ezekiel prays for deliverance from the siege of Jerusalem laid by the Assyrian King, Sennacherib, in 70BC.

So the meat of this antiphon expresses very succinctly a certain physical imagery of salvation, that of Israel and its earthly foes, whilst hinting at the hidden way – and thereby the real significance of salvation – in which God will save us.

This salvation is once again given its universal orientation by the phrase at the centre of the antiphon: “the One whom the peoples await and their Saviour.” Although the first part of this is a reference to the prophecy made by Jacob (who was renamed Israel) to his sons (Gn 49:10) regarding the Messiah who would emerge from Judah, the specific notion of a Saviour of all peoples is one that is more identifiable with the New Testament writings of St John and St Paul.

In this way, the final antiphon rounds off the three antiphons that form the acrostic for the word “ero” – “I will be”. The first four, which give “cras” (“tomorrow”), all referred explicitly to the Old Testament; whereas these latter three rely on the New Testament for their full meaning. As the 23rd December draws to a close and the Church waits expectantly for the birth of the Saviour at the next midnight, the last three antiphons have literally spelt out the immanent arrival of Christ, and drawn together the promises of the Old Testament with their fulfilment.

Listen to the O Emmanuel antiphon here

Stefan Kaminski

Director, The Christian Heritage Centre

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Advent Antiphons: O Rex

22nd December 2020

The CHC blog

22nd December - O Rex

“O King whom all the people’s desire, you are the cornerstone which makes all one.
O come and save man, whom you made from clay.”  

The penultimate antiphon expresses a very Christocentric reading of the Old Testament. Unlike the previous antiphons, none of the Old Testament texts to which it refers are essentially Messianic prophecies.

The English translation loses some of the references however. The Latin antiphon translates more literally as, “O King of the people, and [who is] desired by them”. “King of the people” is drawn from Jeremiah’s speech, in which he contrasts Israel’s true God with the pagan idols ( Jer 10:7). The application of this title to Christ the Son seems to be original to the antiphon’s author.

The people’s desire, as expressed here, has also been subjected to some reinterpretation. The text refers to Haggai’s prophecy (2:7) where, in the Hebrew text, the prophet speaks of that which is desirable or precious flowing in. The English, and other vernacular translations, translate this to refer to “treasure” or similar. But St Jerome, in his Latin translation, instead personifies the desirable or precious object, giving it a Messianic interpretation. And so the antiphon interprets the Promised One, Israel’s own God in human form, as the true desire of humanity.

The universal sense of this desire is reinforced by the “cornerstone which makes all one”. St Paul, in Ephesians 2:20, refers to Christ as the cornerstone on which the Church is built. In turn, he draws this expression from Isaiah 28:16, which speaks of a stone at the foundations of Sion. However, the Latin antiphon then quotes Ephesians 2:14,, which refers to making both one (rather than all). St Paul is here referring to the “pagans and Jews”, who are brought together as one in Christ.

The antiphon concludes by underlining, again, that universality of both pagans and Jews (i.e. of all humanity) by reference to their common Creator. The making of man from clay refers to Genesis 2:7. It should not surprise us that the antiphon accredits this act of creation to the Second Person of the Trinity. St John’s Gospel reminds us that “all things were made through Him”, and several Fathers of the Church (particularly Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus) speak of the role of the Son, and indeed the Holy Spirit, in creation.

Thus, immediately prior to the imminent manifestation of the Christ-Child, this antiphon reminds us of the splendour and power that human form will veil in the Christmas mystery.

Listen to the O Rex antiphon here

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Stefan Kaminski

Director, The Christian Heritage Centre

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Advent Antiphons: O Oriens

21st December 2020

The CHC blog

21st December - O Oriens

“O Rising Sun, you are the splendour of eternal light and the sun of justice.
O come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.”  
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The fifth antiphon comes together out of a coincidence of literary necessity, the calendar and its relation to the previous antiphon.

Any literary-sensitive person will note the discomfort of “Oriens” following on from “O”. However, as with “Adonai”, “Oriens” in part serves to complete the acrostic that the antiphons form. Before despairing at such a utilitarian approach however, it has to be observed that the calendar comes to the rescue by providing an objective significance to this choice of words: 21st December is also the winter solstice. From now on, in the northern hemisphere, the Sun’s light indeed begins to increase and to rise earlier.

And this contrast between light and darkness, so aptly captured by St John in the prologue to His Gospel, also describes the relationship of this antiphon to its predecessor. The “Rising Sun” (or “Dayspring”, in some translations), follows immediately from the previous plea for freedom for “those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.”

Before returning to the repetition of this last phrase, there are the three, distinct, light-themed invocations to consider, all of which are grounded in the Old Testament.

“Rising Sun” contains a duplicate reference. The Greek word, anatole, was used to signify not only “rising sun” but also “shoot” or “branch”. Anatole was used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament in Zechariah 3:8 and 6:12, both of which are Messianic prophecies referring to the Shoot or Branch. When St Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, he chose to translate these texts with the Latin for “rising sun” – “oriens”. This perhaps made all the more sense in view of the fact that St Luke used the same Greek word, anatole, in reporting Zechariah’s prophecy at the birth of his son, John the Baptist: “the loving-kindness of the heart of our God, who visits us like the rising sun from on high.” “Oriens” was the more fitting translation for St Luke’s text, and thereby the antiphon reflects its roots in the prophecies of both the Old Testament Zechariah and the New Testament Zechariah.

The phrase “Splendour of eternal light” points us back to the Book of Wisdom, and indeed to the first of the antiphons. This title is used to describe Wisdom herself, in 7:26. Whilst “eternal light” refers to the omnipotence of God (i.e. the Father), the emanating splendour of Wisdom has been understood as a reference to the Son since the earliest Christian times.

In keeping with the theme of significant days, “sun of justice” is found in Malachi’s prophecy of the Great Day of the Lord, in chapter 4. It will rise “with healing in its wings” for the righteous. Although the phrase is not found again in the Bible, a third century AD text, referring to Christ in relation to the “sun of justice”, helped to cement the tradition of the Lord’s Birth as being around the winter solstice.

The second half of this antiphon again draws in the theme of shadow and darkness, which awaits to be dispelled by the light. “Those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death” is also a phrase used by the New Testament Zechariah at the birth of John the Baptist (Luke 1:79). In his turn, Zechariah is undoubtedly borrowing from one of Isaiah’s great prophecies (Is 9:2), in which “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…”

The antiphon thus unites our prayers to those of our ancestors in asking the Lord to fulfil this prophecy and to save us from the shadow of darkness.

Listen to the O Oriens antiphon here

Stefan Kaminski

Director, The Christian Heritage Centre